Numir appeared at the window.
“Let’s go,” Rudi croaked and went for his cabin as calmly as he could, clipped on his seat belt, and stabbed Engines Start. Sandor did likewise, Pop Kelly a second behind him, their rotors gathering speed. Leisurely, Dubois tossed his suitcase to Fowler, laid his raincoat carefully on a crate, and got into the pilot’s seat, at once started up, not bothering with his seat belt or checklist. Fowler was swearing incoherently. Their jets were building nicely and Dubois hummed a little song, adjusted his headset, and now, when all was prepared, fastened his seat belt. He did not see Numir rush out of his office.
“Where are you going?” Numir shouted to Rudi through his side window. “Iran-Toda, it’s on the manifest.” Rudi continued with the start-up drill. VHF on, HF on, needles coming into the Green.
“But you haven’t asked Abadan for engine start an - ”
“It’s Holy Day, Agha, you can do that for us.”
Numir shouted angrily, “That’s your job! You’re to wait for Zataki. You must wait for the col - ”
“Quite right, I want to make sure my chopper’s ready the instant he arrives - very important to please him, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but why was Dubois carrying a suitcase?”
“Oh, you know Frenchmen,” he said, saying the first thing that came into his head, “clothes are important; he’s sure he’s going to be based at Iran-Toda and he’s taking a spare uniform.” His gloved thumb hovered over the transmit switch on the col-umn. Don’t, he ordered himself, don’t be impatient, they all know what to do, don’t be impatient.
Then, behind Numir, through the haze, visibility down to a few hundred yards, Rudi saw the Green Band truck lumber through the main gate and stop, its noise covered by their jets. But it wasn’t Zataki, just some of their normal Green Band guards and they stood there in a group watching the 212s curiously. Never before had four 212s been started up at once. In his headphones he heard Dubois, “Ready, mon vieux,” then Pop Kelly, then Sandor, and he clicked the send switch and said into the boom mike, “Go!,” leaned closer to the window, and beckoned Numir. “No need for the others to wait, I’m waiting.”
“But you were ordered to go in a group and your clearances…” The base manager’s voice was drowned by the mass of engines shoved to full power, emergency takeoff procedure, conforming to the plan the pilots had secretly agreed on last night, Dubois going right, Sandor left, Kelly straight ahead like a covey of snipe scattering. In seconds they were airborne and away, staying very low. Numir’s face went purple, “But you were told th…” “This is for your safety, Agha, we’re trying to protect you,” Rudi called over the jets, beckoning him forward again, all his own needles in the Green; “this way’s better, Agha, this way we’ll do the job and no problem. We’ve got to protect you and IranOil.” In his earphones he heard Dubois break mandatory radio silence and say urgently, “There’s a car almost at the gates!”
At that instant Rudi saw it and recognized Zataki in the front seat. Maximum power. “Agha, I’m just going to take her up a few feet, my torque counter’s jumping…”
Whatever Numir was screaming was lost in the noise. Zataki was barely a hundred yards away. Rudi felt the rotors biting into the air, then lift off. For a moment it looked as though Numir were going to jump onto a skid but he ducked out of the way, the skid scraping him, and fell as Rudi got forward momentum and lumbered away, almost bursting with excitement. Ahead, the others were in station over the marsh. He waggled his chopper from side to side as he joined them, gave them the thumbs-up, and led the rush for the Gulf four miles distant.
Numir was choked with rage as he picked himself up, and Zataki’s car skidded to a halt beside him. “By God, what’s going on?” Zataki said furiously, jumping out, the choppers already vanished into the haze, the sound of the engines dying away now. “They were supposed to wait for me!” “I know, I know, Colonel, I told them but they … they just took off an - ” Numir screamed as the fist smashed him in the side of the face and felled him. The other Green Bands watched indifferently, used to these outbursts. One of the men pulled Numir to his feet, slapped his face to bring him around.
Zataki was cursing the sky and when the spasm of rage had passed, he said, “Bring that piece of camel’s turd and follow me.” Storming past the open hangar he saw the two 206s parked neatly in the back, spares laid out here and there, a fan drying some new paintwork - all Rudi’s painstaking camouflage to give them an extra few minutes. “I’ll make those dogs wish they’d waited,” he muttered, his head aching.
He kicked the door of the office open and stormed over to the radio transmitter and sat down near it. “Numir, get those men on the loudspeaker!” “But Janan, our radio operator isn’t here yet and I do - ” “Do it!”
The terrified man switched on the VHF, his mouth bleeding and hardly able to talk. “Base calling Captain Lutz!” He waited, then repeated the order, adding, “Urgent!”
IN THE AIRPLANES: They were barely ten feet above the marshland and a few hundred yards away when they heard Zataki’s angry voice cut in: “All helicopters are recalled to base, recalled to base! Report in!” Rudi made a slight adjustment to the engine power and to the trim. In the chopper nearest to him he saw Marc Dubois point at his headset and make an obscene gesture. He smiled and did likewise, then noticed the sweat running down his face. “ALL HELICOPTERS REPORT IN! ALL…”
AT THE AIRFIELD: “… HELICOPTERS REPORT IN.” Zataki was shrieking into the mike. “ALL HELICOPTERS REPORT IN!”
Nothing but static answered him. Suddenly Zataki slammed the mike onto the table. “Get Abadan Tower! HURRY UP!” he shouted and the terrified Numir, blood trickling into his beard, switched channels, and after the sixth call, this time in Farsi, got the tower. “Here is Abadan Tower, Agha, please go ahead.”
Zataki tore the mike out of his hand. “This is Colonel Zataki, Abadan Revolutionary Komiteh,” he said in Farsi, “calling from Bandar Delam airfield.”
“Peace be upon you, Colonel,” the voice was very deferential. “What can we do for you?”
“Four of our helicopters took off without approval, going to Iran-Toda. Recall them, please.”
“Just a moment, please.” Muffled voices. Zataki waited, his face mottled. Waiting and waiting, then, “Are you sure, Agha? We do not see them on the radar screen.”
“Of course I’m sure. Recall them!”
More muffled voices and more waiting, Zataki ready to explode, then a voice in Farsi said, “The four helicopters that left Bandar Delam are ordered to return to their base. Please acknowledge you are doing this.” It was transmitted ineptly and repeated. Then the voice added, “Perhaps their radios are not functioning, Agha, the blessings of God upon you.” “Keep calling them! They’re low and heading toward Iran-Toda.” More muffled voices, then more Farsi as before, then a sudden voice cut in in American English, “Okay, I’ll take it! This is Abadan Control. Choppers on a heading of 090 degrees, do you read?”
IN DUBOIS’S COCKPIT: His compass heading was 091 degrees. Again the crisp voice in his earphones: “This is Abadan Control, choppers on a heading of 090 degrees one mile from the coast, do you read?” A pause. “Abadan Control, choppers on a heading of 090 switch to channel 121.9…do you read?” This was the emergency channel that all aircraft were supposed to listen in on automatically. “Choppers on a heading of 090 degrees one mile from the coast return to base. Do you read?”
Through the haze Dubois saw that the coast was approaching fast, less than half a mile away, but flying this low he doubted if they could possibly be on radar. He looked left. Rudi pointed at his earphones and then a finger to his lips meaning silence. He gave him the thumbs-up and passed the message to Sandor who was on his right, turned to see Fowler Joines climbing in from the cabin to sit beside him. He motioned to the spare headset hanging above the seat. The voice was more brittle now: “All choppers outward bound from Bandar Delam to Iran-Toda return to base. Do you read?”
Fowler, connected now through the headset, said into their intercom, “Hope the effer drops dead!”
Then again the voice and their smiles faded: “Abadan Control to Colonel Zataki. Do you read?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“We picked up a momentary radar trace, probably nothing, but it could have been a chopper or choppers tightly bunched, heading 090 degrees” - the transmission was weakening slightly - “this would take them direct…”
AT THE AIRFIELD: “…Iran-Toda. Not requesting engine start and not being in radio contact is a serious violation. Please give us their call signs and names of the captains. Iran-Toda’s VHF is still inoperative otherwise we would contact them. Suggest you send someone down there to arrest the pilots and bring them before the ATC Abadan komiteh at once for contravening air regulations. Do you copy?”
“Yes … yes, I understand. Thank you. Just a moment.” Zataki shoved the mike into Numir’s hands. “I’m going
